Stratus
by jellyfishbowl
Summary: When Steven Stone met Leaf Silph he  correctly  thought this: a village out there must be missing its idiot. Leaf/Steven placethemed drabbles


_Leaf/Steven place-themed drabbles i started a long time ago. dont take them too seriously haha. _

* * *

><p>When Steven Stone first met Leaf Silph he (correctly) thought this; <em>a village out there must be missing its idiot. <em>

Leaf had managed to get herself smacked in the face by a passing Sharpedo, as she stood on solid ground, and toppled into the ocean.

She had been looking so attractive, too.

Steven had literally done a double take when he'd seen the girl, standing on an opposite logway to him, with this indecipherable expression, head turned into the sun. It was late afternoon, and the light was a dim, benign presence on the horizon, dousing half of her in gold and lining her hair in blinding saffron. She looked capricious and dream-like, head tilting into the searing skyline, that perfect bottom lip smooth and heart-shaped. Perhaps it was the spray of freckles, the defined line of her nose, or the bottle green of her eyes—Steven didn't really know. All he knew was that he had literally caught her out of the corner of his eye, paused, and then turned around fully to gape at her like a complete moron.

But no one could really blame him, as most of the other hippie-like inhabitants of the town had done the very same.

It wasn't like Pacifidlog got many disturbingly attractive visitors, as its reputation as a tourist attraction had long since faded, along with its roads and general transportation system. All that was left was a faulty system of logs tied by strings, set out to weather the coarse tides and storms, and the vagrant inhabitants that were either too old or too lazy to move.

She was wearing a white bikini and very little else, jean shorts too short to be considered anything but scandalous and the top button was popped open to reveal the white bottoms underneath. Her hips were lined with belts of pouches and packs, denoting her as a trainer.

There was a brief, startling moment when her eyes met his, light burning his peripheral vision but not enough for him to blink, and miss the sea in her iris. There was some sort of undeniable connection, and Steven didn't know what it was but later he'd think, _maybe it was love. _

And then, it came.

Sharpedo were indigenous to the dark, murky waters of Pacifidlog, and never in Steven's travels had he ever seen one jump clear out of the water, only to barrel straight into a person.

Steven had never been so successfully cockblocked by a Pokémon in his entire life.

It would take him a long time after their first encounter, and their second, and third, and fourth, and fifth until he'd finally at least unraveled a tiny piece of her, for Leaf was made up of nothing but layers of vague answers and elusive silence.

And sometimes, sometimes he'd wished he'd never met her at all.

"You're a trainer?" She blinks at him, as she's toweled off and sprawls across the wooden landing of one of the houses, all bronze legs and slim torso. There's dots of water lingering on her skin and Steven has the morbid need to lick them all.

"Aren't you?" He counters, after moving out of his daze. This isn't like him.

She smiles. "Not very much of one." She gestures to her pile of stuff, and there's a strange looking pokeball that looks frighteningly familiar, as if he'd seen the design many times, but isn't a model he's used to. "I've only got one Pokémon."

Later, Steven would realize she'd tactfully left out the, _"at the moment" _part of that sentence.

"One is all it takes." Says the man who has so many his PC denies him space.

Their feet don't quite reach the tide.

"I suppose." She concedes carefully, but there's something genuinely warm about her voice then; as if those were almost the words she'd wanted to hear—like she'd sort of forgotten the true meaning of being a Pokémon trainer. For fun, for adventure, for happiness.

There's a lull in conversation, so he asks, "You from around here?"

She makes a face. "Not at all." And then, sheepishly, "Actually… could you tell me where I am? I'm a bit lost…"

"No kidding." He says, flatly. "Are you from Hoenn?"

She shakes her head.

"Kanto."

He hums thoughtfully. "That's quite far."

She gives him a smile he'd later know to mean that these were things she'd rather not talk about. It's a half kind of smile, and a little sideways looking. "Needed a change of scenery."

"Is this enough change for you?" He gestures to Pacifidlog—dump of the sea.

"It's perfect." She says sincerely. "It's the most perfect place I've ever been in."

His face is dubious, and it shows. She laughs. "You don't like it?"

"It's small, backwater, and lacks electricity." He points out with obvious distaste. "No, I don't like it very much."

"That's too bad." She sighs, and toys with a lock of her hair. It's mocha colored, like the deep sand on the northern part of Mossdeep, where the water is colder. "I love the sea. In Kanto, we only have one island, and it's so industrialized… Or it had been, anyway. Now there's nothing left."

"There's no shortage of islands here." Says Steven. "So I don't understand why we have a town built on water."

"It's quaint!" She protests.

"It's a _safety hazard_." He retorts, and there's nothing she can say, because she's walking proof of that.

"You have a point." Leaf decides with a sigh. "And there aren't too many ways off of it."

"Boat." He shrugs, gesturing to a rickety looking one that's tethered to a post on a nearby hut.

Leaf scowls. "Pass."

"Pokémon?" Flying or surfing would make transportation decidedly easier.

Leaf gestures to her ball wryly. "Don't have too many of those."

By now the sun is just a lemony color at the base of the horizon, puffy clouds dotting the bottom of it, while broad, smeared ones covered the darkening stratosphere. Steven thinks that perhaps, this does look a bit like paradise. Boats drift in the sea, tethered to posts and houses sit on top of chicken-leg sticks. Pacifidlog looks like it could keel over with one broad sweep of ocean.

The nighttime winds around this area were notorious for their speeds, and Steven didn't feel up to weathering Skarmory against that.

"Do you need somewhere to be?" He asks carefully.

She turns to him. "No, not particularly." She says slowly. "But I do need to get off this island eventually."

"Well it's too late to fly now." He responds thoughtfully. "But tomorrow, I'll fly you anywhere you want to go."

She brightens. "Really?"

"Yeah, sure." Like he'd turn an opportunity for more time with an attractive girl.

He stands then, before pausing. "Hey." She looks up. "Where are you staying for the night?"

She rubs her hair sheepishly. "Uh, well, I was thinking of just staying at the Pokémon center."

The Poke center is run down and is the only reason Pacifidlog is even considered a town. It's rickety and only has power about three hours a day, and is so clearly unused that the door is sometimes kept locked for a few days, as no one hardly needs it. That's really no place for a young girl to be staying.

"Don't." He helps her up. "I'm staying with an old friend of mine—it'd be a lot safer there."

"Poke centers aren't safe in Hoenn?" She raises her brows.

"Not this one." He refutes, though he may have… ulterior motives, and leads them through a variety of water-soaked bridges.

They eventually come to the house—if it could be called anything like that—he's staying at, and its old and made from sea planks and smells like salt, but inside its very tidy. An old man is sitting in a chair propped against the window, and Leaf sits down to hear his tales of all sorts of various mythical islands in the Hoenn sea with intense rapture.

The old man's only got one spare bedroom, which is a miracle in itself, and its small and cramped and one entire wall of it is converted into a window because obviously it got knocked down, and the other is held together by a rickety door.

The two sleep on tatami mats, and Steven's out like a light because he'd spent most of the day diving for clams with the old man, as a favor for all the information the guy's given him over the years. The rapids around Slateport, as well as the diving sights around Pacifidlog are known for their gems and rare stones, and this old man knows them all. It was well worth the grueling work for a chance to discover more sea caves, full of rocks.

Come morning, he sleepily sees waves of Leaf's hair—it had been straight, but after a tumble in the ocean it was sea-mussed and around the edges—as she leans out the window, the sound of water against the planks is all he hears and the smell of salt that burns the back of his nose is all he smells but Leaf, Leaf and the profile of her face, lit in the dim horizon and breathtaking all the same.

He sits up, she leans back, and their faces are so close together he's tempted to count every freckle that dots her nose, or look deeper into the malachite of her eyes, or perhaps, what he really wants to do, is claim those lips for his own. It wouldn't take much, and her eyes are lidded and watching his own but somehow, somehow he pulls back.

"Do you know where you want to go?"

There's an indecipherable expression on her face before she answers. "Rustboro."

* * *

><p><em>..<em>


End file.
